May 2006

Since the release of the PICMG COM Express specification the standard has taken the embedded industry by storm. As OEMs continue to adopt COM Express in their design specifications and product development road maps, the need has become stronger for a smaller performance envelope, combined with a more compact footprint, but preserving plug-in compatibility with existing Basic and Extended COM Express specifications. PICMG members have started to respond to this need with a proposed specification extension and with prototype hardware that demonstrates the feasibility of this approach.

In month's issue we cover the newly proposed micro COM Express specification. We also included an article about COM Express module implementations using today's System-on-FPGAs with embedded host CPUs and fixed function I/O and DSP blocks. These new breeds of FPGAs can provide COM Express module developers with much needed logic programming abilities for high-speed, DSP-intensive embedded applications. In this month's issue you will also find the 5th and last article in the series on the COM Express specification.

Enjoy the topics and articles in this issue and as always, send us your feedback.

Sincerely,
Kishan Jainandunsing
Editor-in-chief
COM Express Source

Smooth Transition to Next Generation Embedded Applications

A new “micro” form factor addition has been proposed to go along with the "Basic" and "Extended" form factors that the COM Express standard now includes. Read on.

Application-Specific COM Express Modules using System-on-FPGAs

Vertical embedded applications are all about application-specific functions and I/O. The COM Express standard, a PICMG open specification that has found considerable traction in the vertical embedded industry, offers OEMs a great deal of flexibility in functionality and I/O. Read on.

The COM Express Specification Explained - Part V

In this column we explain the COM Express specification in a series of tutorials. Last month we took a closer look at insertion loss budget specifications for the high-speed serial differential signals when designing carrier boards. This month we take a closer look at connector and power supply and environmental specifications, with which we conclude this series of articles on the COM Express specification. Read on.